Review

For the past few weeks I have been testing the Samsung 8GB SDHC Plus Class 6 Memory Card. This card may seem like any other SD card, but it has the unique quality of being indestructible. I haven’t put it through extensive tests for robustness as I do want to use it, but so far it has survived a camera drop.

You’re probably already cringing at the thought of another camera bag. But I’ve just gotten a Think Tank Speed Freak 2.0 for my summer workshops and it’s so cool I wanted to tell you about it now rather than waiting until I get back with a full field test. The bag fills that awkward niche between what you can put on a belt and a full up camera backpack…

When I first reviewed Think Tank Photo’s Skin Set belt system I was really excited to find it was the first useable belt system for my work. With locking yet modular pouches it is almost infinitely flexible. The only drawback was the fixed length of the belt. Besides being a problem for those like me whose waist size fluctuates (I know I’m not the only one!) I found myself wanting to adjust it depending on the clothing I was wearing (to put it outside a jacket in cold weather for example) and wasn’t able to. I’m happy to report I just received one of their new “2.0” belts with a very simple and useable adjustment mechanism. Now the system is just about perfect. With the Skin 75 pop-down I can stash an entire 70-200mm f/2.8 with or without hood in one of the pockets and my Infrared converted D70 in another while a strobe or water bottle can live in a third. The smaller “front” pouches are perfect for filters or other small items and the optional quiet flaps are helpful for indoor events. Whether or not you’ve got the original system I highly recommend at least upgrading to the new belt. Use our Affiliate Link to Think Tank and get a free bag with your order!

These are items that we either rely on personally in my travels or have been picked out for our clients by the experienced travel pros at Edward’s Luggage, a local family owned chain of four travel and luggage stores here in the Bay Area. It is by no means complete but I’ll be adding to it and expanding it as new products come to my attention:

For anyone shooting video with a D-SLR you’ve already figured out that your flash is useless. Instead you need to invest in a separate video light if you want to do any shooting that requires more than ambient light. Until now with Canon’s new Speedlite 320EX II which it announced today along with the Rebel T3i and T3. Read on to learn which it’s such an exciting innovation…

The YOUBIQ won't turn your iPhone into a pro camera, but for those looking to upgrade their camera phone photography experience the YOUBIQ Gymbl, App & Cloud solution is an interesting set of products and services which aim to make everything from image capture to upload and organization simpler. For, say, real estate agents or others who rely on their phones for quick images for work this could be great. And for families and vacationers who are almost happy with the iPhone as a camera but want to take it one notch further this will be an interesting alternative to getting a point and shoot with an Eye-Fi card. Read on for more details...

Mid-range zooms have become the bread and butter lens for almost all photographers, pro and amateur. So each new announcement in that space is greeted with tremendous energy and excitement. Nikon’s overhaul of the venerable 28-70mm f/2.8 into the digital full frame friendly 24-70mm f/2.8 was big news for Nikon shooters. But the 24-70 is large, heavy, expensive and doesn’t have VR (Vibration Reduction). Sigma’s 24-70 helps with the first three but it also doesn’t have VR. And neither offers the kind of large range photographers have come to want from their zooms. So enter the new Nikon 24-120mm f/4 AF-S VR Lens—Nikon’s third offering in that zoom range. Read on to find out if it finally the perfect fit for your needs…

It's no secret that we're big fans and big users of ProShow Gold and the higher end ProShow Producer for creating excellent slideshows and DVDs on Windows. That's why we added them as a site sponsor and are always excited when they come up with a new release. This week Photodex announced and shipped ProShow 4.5 a solid upgrade to both its flagship products. Read on to learn about our first experiences with it...

[amazon B001IMJV0E thumbnail] There are plenty of photography and camera specific GPS devices, and of course lots of hand held and car units, but the iGot-U family of GPS dataloggers from MobileAction Technology are unique as a truly "pocket friendly" gizmo that do one simple thing very well--track and share where you've been...

One missing link in Nikon's Pro lens line has been the lack of VR on the mid-range and wide-angle zoom lenses. Certainly VR is not as important on these lenses as on longer focal lengths, but there are many conditions where hand-holding is the only option and a low shutter speed is the best option. Now with the new 16-35mm f/4 AF-S VR Nikon has addressed the shortcoming...The lens features include:

Sigma continues to impress me with their updated versions of pro and semi-pro lense for D-SLRs. They provide excellent value with pricing below the Nikon and Canon versions while not sacrificing image quality. Their new 24-70mm f/2.8 full frame HSM (same as USM or AF-S) is no exception...

Even more important to excellent bird photography than having the right camera is having the right lens. There is no point in purchasing that dream camera body and crippling yourself with a cheap lens. In the 8 years I've been leading digital photo safaris I've had the chance to use or at least see used just about every likely lens made for Nikon and Canon camera bodies and have plenty of hopefully useful thoughts to share with you:

As raw files become the common currency of high-end photographry a widening array of tools is arriving to help photographers get the most from them. I've been using SpyderCube from Datacolor/Colorvision for awhile to help set white and black points along with white balance for color critical situations.

Last week I wrote about a great way to improve the quality of your prints by creating customer printer profiles with Spyder3Print SR. But as anyone who prints a lot knows, that is only half the story. Between layout, spooling, swapping paper and ink, and reprinting on demand the actual production workflow is as big a challenge as print quality for anyone serious about printing.

Fortunately there are two excellent software packages that can help. Today we'll look at Imageprint 8 and Qimage 2009 Studio Edition. By reading the review hopefully you can learn whether one or the other of these applications should be part of your photography toolset...

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